Just Thinking
FAITH and REASON
A Never Ending Tug Of War
July, 2023

Thanks to a glitch in our evolutionary process, we humans are indeed fortunate to be blessed by two separate compartments in our brains, which like the three branches of the government, each operates independently of the other while they jointly complement each other and contribute to the functional integrity and sanity of the host. Again, similar to the branches of the government, problems inevitably arise whenever one department attempts to intrude into and interfere with the affairs of the other. I am, of course, referring to the two windows through which we view the world around us and our existences in it, namely the separate windows of faith and reason.

Unquestionably, faith or unreasoned belief (make-believe, superstition, etc.) must have provided mankind with the needed answers to the puzzles and mysteries of its world for hundreds of millennia before reason or scientific knowledge began to claim its role as recently as a few hundred years ago. Even then many if not most scientific principles were assumed to have been rooted in some faith-based metaphysical grounds. The reasons for that are quite logical and yes, ironically scientific!

Unlike other species of life on earth, our highly inquisitive species had evolved with a natural urge to know how and why things happened the way they did; things and phenomena such as birth, sickness, death, storms, thunder, lightning, famine, drought, etc. – almost everything around them for which causes or reasons were not visibly obvious. In the absence of scientific knowledge, the power of imagination and creative thinking kicked in to rescue our ancestors from intolerable, indeed fatal, confusion and chaos. That way they could imagine any number of invisible, yet powerful, creator/motivators that had some reason and purpose behind all that they observed and experienced; it clearly made a lot more sense to them that way. I simply cannot imagine how an abstract thinking self-aware being could have survived without what I can define as a metaphysical awareness. For such a metaphysical consciousness to function as an effective tool or antidote to an answer-hungry species, it had to have co-evolved together with our genetic chemistry that was responsible for our heightened cognitive capacity. That wasn't something that the early Stone-Age ancestors thought of and concocted later in order to respond to their inquisitive minds. Our Homo sapiens forebears would have succumbed in despair to their hopeless confusion long before they could have come up with that kind of solution!

Even today in the 21st century, the power and influence of faith often overshadow reasoned logic in the daily lives of most humans on earth. That is the reason why practically every human society, from small isolated groups in hard to access jungles, to the largest civilizations comprising billions of people, practice various kinds of organized religion or, in the case of smaller scattered tribes, some form of spiritual rituals. Without doubt, this is simply a genetically evolved survival trait, which is peculiar to us humans.

The very concept of hope, for instance, something without which no individual or civilization could survive for long, has its metaphysical roots deeply engrained in our genetic code. What is hope if not the desire, and not an expectation, to somehow overcome realistic odds against what we wish for? We certainly don't have to hope for day to follow night or for water to flow downhill, or for the credit card company to forget sending us the monthly statement. But we do hope, for example, that a timely rainstorm waters our fields for a better harvest and replenishes our drought stricken streams. While cloud-seeding and other scientific methods to force nimbus clouds to release their water contents, ritualistic rain dance ceremonies are also practiced globally. If the rains do come after such rituals, the believers' faith in the power of the unseen supernatural is further strengthened; and if it does not, the finger of blame is never pointed at the powers above, but at their own shortcomings that might have made them undeserving of the heavenly favors they were hoping for. And, there also is a very good reason for that: Casting a shadow of doubt upon a belief structure that had served its purpose for eons would have been more risky in the long run than accepting the blame for occasional unfulfilled desires.

Prayers also play an important role in our daily lives. Of course, there is no denying that prayers do have a positive psychotherapeutic effect for those who are aware of being the recipients of such prayers. But what about those who have no idea they are being prayed for? In the latter case, it is the people who do the praying who are the true beneficiaries of their own prayers, as it often serves two purposes at the same time; indicating the magnanimous sympathetic nature of those people, while providing a substitute for getting actually involved in the often costly act of providing meaningful material assistance: not bad; a win-win situation! We may spend a couple of hundred dollars a month for gourmet dog foods that look good enough for human consumption; and to balance that extravagance and to console our souls, pray for the millions who are starving in Sudan or Yemen! Some would go as far as saying that it must be their own fault for which the powers above are punishing them, and any interference in their affair is, therefore, unwarranted.

But this again is the naked truth about the human nature, whether we pretend to deny it or not. As I have mentioned before, our distant cousins climbing trees in African jungles and savannahs don't worry or show any concern for such elevated cultural matters; they don't need to rationalize their instinctive behaviors. We do, and this is when we open our amply stocked metaphysical toolbox in our brain and find the right tools to manufacture the necessary rationale for many of our less than noble deeds or desires.

Our post-Enlightenment and the more modern social theorists (philosophers!) have dared to challenge the usefulness of the metaphysical side of the human consciousness, which is generally sandwiched within religious doctrines. The19th century German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, declared "God is dead!" Other well-known thinkers such as Hegel and Heidegger were of the same opinion, meaning that the metaphysical aspects of human consciousness were no longer serving any purpose in guiding and charting the progress of human civilization; and, instead of relying on the imaginary heavenly powers for salvation, humans must, through self-realization, unchain and elevate their own status to become what Nietzsche called Übermensch, the Higher Man, which I'd rather transliterate as the Enlightened Man.

These were not the first, nor the last, of rebellions against religious doctrines or metaphysical philosophies in general. Among today's thinkers who express their opinions in their books or lectures, I would like to mention the British evolutionary biologist and renowned atheist, Richard Dawkins. After reading several of his books, I discovered that I actually shared most of his views on a variety of subjects, with one important exception. In my own book, Necessary Illusions, I mentioned Mr. Dawkins in the context of the one area where he and I stand on opposite sides; and I quote:
"I don't believe Richard Dawkins is any more of an 'atheist' than I am. But while he tries to force the realm of unreasoned faith, superstition and the supernatural into a coffin and nail it shut in order to save the human civilization from this epidemic of delusion, I intend to argue that there would have been no civilization for Mr. Dawkins to save had it not been for the human mind's capability, indeed the natural impulse, to appeal to the illusory domain of the supernatural to temper its runaway inquisitiveness."

In other words, while Mr. Dawkins categorically rejects unreasoned belief or faith without evidence as a useless, indeed harmful, delusion, I regard it as a necessary illusion as a powerful instinct that has proven effective for the survival of our species. I also believe that suggesting or promoting a sociological thesis or philosophy devoid of our natural instinct to appeal to the seat of the supernatural is not only impossible, it reeks of yet another religious-sounding doctrine, which Mr. Dawkins supposedly rejects! Furthermore, promoting any doctrine must come with some definite purpose in mind; to achieve what exactly? How could we know if that particular philosophy, i.e., objective no-nonsense physicality, would bring mankind what is best for it? If human contentment could be assumed to be the ultimate goal of its existence, shouldn't we first define that ultimate contentment before suggesting yet another doctrine to achieve it?

In my own personal view, there is no such thing as an ultimate contentment that could be applied to everyone, everywhere and for all times. As a result, I have refrained from suggesting how things ought to be and, instead, have tried to explain to the best of my ability how things actually are. I'd rather leave the job of pontificating on how things ought to be to the dictators, politicians and theologians who are full of various contradictory and often self-serving ideas.

In conclusion: If the aroma of sizzling bacon and fresh baked bread, or the sight of luscious Danish pastries, actually nauseate you, you could also flip a switch in your mind and turn off your instinctive inclination to hope for the improbable and resist the urge to try your luck every now and then; and join the ranks of the elite Enlightened Menschen! But also remember the old WWI expression: There are no atheists in the foxholes!

Kam Zarrabi